As I mentioned in the previous post, I use a process called Dynamic Participation as a methodology for consulting and facilitating. Increasingly we live in an age where “participation” is thrown around like snuff at a wake – what exactly does it mean? and more to the point, what does…

In terms of clarity, strategy has become an ever more obtuse art (Micklethwait J and Wooldridge A, 1996, pp159). We are regularly invited to assist organisations in the generation of strategic plans. The generation of a document or report is very often seen as the “end product” of a process…

I’m delighted to announce that Interactions has won the contract to design and manage a consultation process for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to inform the first strategy for arts development in the county. We’ll be working closely with the Arts Office and I’m looking forward to meeting artists, policy…

The director of the conference I attended in France made a short presentation at the last session in which he encapsulated what he and the management had been doing for the 8 days of our experience. “We have been managing boundaries, not policing rules” That’s the most concise description of…

What happens when you have 80 people in a confined space over 8 days? Emotions start running high, that’s what. And in some cases – very high and I include myself in that description. It’s interesting to find myself in an institutional setting experiencing much of what my clients experience…

We’ve spent about 4 hours talking about chairs. Moving them, not moving them, what they “symbolise”, who’s not sitting in one, who is sitting in the middle of the group, who’s sitting on the outside of the group. Were anyone to walk into the middle of these conversations I’m convinced…

There are over 80 participants at this conference, complemented by a team of ten “staff”. All are drawn from the four corners of the earth. I’ve met people from France, the United States, Peru, India and every place in between. The working languages of the conference are English and French…

There is a certain irony in arriving at a conference that is ostensibly about transform-action on a day when the French have decided to stage a day of non-action. But such are the things that these kinds of experiences are made of. I made it to my hotel with 5…

Tomorrow morning I head for Paris where I’m participating in my first Group Relations Conference. It’s not a traditional conference where papers are presented, workshops convened etc. Group Relations conferences are about the study of behaviour in organisations. To that end managers, consultants, students and psychotherapists from all over the…

If I’ve been asked that question once, I’ve been asked it a hundred times in the last few years. In an age of the “sound bite” trying to talk about the complexity of human relationships that make up business life doesn’t quite lend itself to co-operation. All of my work…